Katmai National Park

Katmai National Park

What an experience! We flew from Homer so we had an hour scenic flight to Katmai where we saw tons of glaciers and we even got to fly around a volcano! So cool! As we landed on the beach there was a grizzly bear right there on the beach next to the plane. Only like thirty feet away. We've only run into four grizzlies before this, but this was such an awesome experience to see them for more than a few minutes at a time. 

Boarding

In the clouds

Glaciers

Volcano

More glaciers

Ribbons of Rivers

Our first bear to watch

We were watching him from a good ways away, but he kept getting closer and closer. We asked if we should move, but our guide (Jared, he was super awesome) told us to stay sitting. It's a submissive pose, and if we had gotten up it would have been an aggressive move toward the grizzly. If we had decided to run, it would have assumed we were prey and run after us. I was the closest to the bear as he wandered ten feet away from us. Pausing to a moment to sniff at us. It gave me goosebumps! For all you out there that haven't seen my video of how close he got, check out my facebook. It was crazy! They don't do that very often and the only thing our guide has to protect us is a flare.

Fortunately, because of the abundance of food on Katmai (its an island) the bears aren't willing to risk getting injured in a fight with you when there is plenty of protein grass, clams, and deer to chase down so its rarely a problem. They know the bears that are problematic because they have fight markings, like a torn ear or face and the guides know to give them a lot of distance.

He walked right past us to get to the beach for some clam digging

We walked over to a couple of other bears we saw out clam digging and watched them crack open and eat the clams.

They were pretty intent on what they were doing and didn't care one bit that we were watching.

On our way back toward the plane another two grizzlies came out of the grass and another past right next to our plane to get out on the beach. We ate lunch on the beach with three grizzlies within our sight. They have never had human food before so while it may smell interesting, again they aren't willing to fight us for it when they have plenty of food available. So you can't bring fish, but anything else is game. The Kodiak Grizzly is the biggest grizzly in the world because of the plentiful food sources. They don't even hibernate because they can find food during the winter as well. 

We got to see 10 Grizzly Bears and even more as we were flying away. We even saw a little baby with its mom as we were leaving. It was an incredible experience! So happy we got to go.